No-one's Home, Part Two,
Team Titan Think Tank Issue 36- "No-One's Home" (Part Two) Front cover- Yu, Cain, Reb and Tops stand together back to back, stood in a cloud of rising ash, surrounded by hands and feet that indicate bodies crushed by rubble. The scene opens with Cain and Tops. Cain looks around with a scowl, ending it in more of a snarl. "Nightmare. I've no doubt. I've... been here before, you could say. The only troubling thing is I had to be asleep before. "Stay alert, Think Tank. Perhaps more imporantly... stay strong. He'll prey on your dread, your fears. Well... your nightmares." "Our fears?" Reb's eyes widen ever so slighty. "What is going on, Cain?" Yu asks. Cain spreads his stance defensively, trying to keep his eyes out in each direction, trying to be ready for anything. "This isn't *real* Yu. A psychic foe is either trying to assault us or worse, delay us." The comic cuts to Mr Psychic. He sees the shockwave of the nuclear explosion coming towards him. Windows shatter. Mr Psychic watches as people run towards him and then are flung like ragdools and eviscerated by flying glass. Mr Psychic ducks down as the glass shatters, the glass of the car he is sat in, which bizarrely... passes through him. "What in the name of PG Tips..." he says in almost a whisper. Mr Psychic pulls what looks like a carnation from his trouser pocket and presses a button on it before fixing it to his waistcoat. "Hope this wasn't broken in my little mind-controlled session." There is a pink flash above his head as his top hat drops onto it and there are other flashes as his other gadgets appear. He looks in the shattered remains of the rear view mirror at his hat, "Ah, splendid. And now to reunite with the others. Certainly hope they came out of that last blast as well as I did." And he drives off in the hot-wired car, down a road filled with bodies... We cut back to the rest of the Titans. Though Tommy Gunn is up, Glub and TT Black seem to be down again , whilst the Think Tank are all still active. Reb just looks very confused, with Yu, stood by the Gunns. "This seems to be a most difficult problem." Yu's eyes widen a little as realisation dawns. "Then...the island is still up there. We need to find the source of this, and put a stop to it. Cain, do you know where this Nightmare might be?" "Regrettably, I'm not sure to what extend his powers have been boosted the Surge that Blitzkrieg no doubt gave him. I've no experience with him teleporting, which he apparently did before I arrived. He could have vanished to the other end of the city. He could be right here with us, blocking himself out of our minds. Of course, to do anything more than *aesthetics* he would have needed to keep us in sight... before." "What do we do, Dad?" Sonne asks. "I don't know... I saw the guy buggering off. I think Cain's right, this guys way more powerful than experience suggests." Yu shakes his head with frustration before lifting it and calling out. "Phear! Stop this! We need to stop the real island from killing thousands of innocents!" Tommy drops to his knees "You think he believes you can save him?" he says to Yu "I think he knows he's gonna die, and he plans to torture us with the knolwedge. The guys got a lot of issues about bein' controlled... a human/Kraan/overmind hybrid stuck him in a box for months and used him to mutilate people's minds whilst they slept... you think that expereince gave him much of a conscience?" "There's always a chance to do some right before you go..." Sonne sighs, standing up and sobering swiftly, or at least concealling the damage. He flicks open a terminal at his wrist and starts running diagnostics. "LUCKY, deploy armour sealant in breached areas and realign the gyros.." The technobabble fades into the background. Reb calls out, looking around the area; "Nightmare? Yu is right, if you want to torture us while you die you can, but I can heal you and if even that isn't enough, let us save the city, then take your vengeance on us. Don't be what the Kraan wanted you to be, Mr Nightmare. Be you and do what you think is right," he calls out looking round the area. "I am dying. I have been shot", comes Nightmare's voice... from all around. "And the moment I drop the illusion, the invisible assasin will kill me... suggest to me how you'll heal me when he finishes... *cough* the job..." "I will encase you and I alone only, in a room, and heal you," Reb offers. "I have the power to create matter from possibly the most basic concept of chaos." With that the world around Reb swirls into black ash. And then Reb finds himself in a dimly lit stone room. He is sat in a chair, at a stone table, and opposite him, sits Black Nightmare. "I -know- you... how do I know you? You are a child, I never encountered a -child- among the Titans. Yet... I feel like i know you... deeply. How?" His blood pours across the table. He clutches one hand to his chest. "Because I too have a stange feeling of familiarity." Reb looks to him, confused. "We both change reality... i, with the fear that people... feel... nghh..." He clutches his chest. "And i with the hopes and the dreams of the people filled with hope..." Reb looks to him, sadly. "I feel more than we know of each other. You were me, I was you... I don't understand but we were once one." "Hope..." "And fear," Reb completes. Black Nightmare's eyes blaze yellow then. "Yessssss.... we were... brothers once... whole..." Black Nightmare stands; the bullets hiss and smoke, purple smoke. "But fear was stronger than hope... the first world war... the sonne... the second world war... the holocaust... the atom bombs... so much FEAR..." He slams his hands on the table before Reb. "And where was HOPE? COWEEEERRIIIING in the darkness. We remember now... cowering... skulllllllllking.... but they see ussssssss... as the skullllkiing one... the terror..." "Hope was there. I don't remember the cowering. I am not what i was. Now I am a boy. Now fear, hope is more plentiful then fear. Can you not feel it here brother?" "Ha. HA. You did not FEEEEEEEEEEEL it brotttttttttttther. My own. Me. You. You did not feeeeeeeel... the pain... and the terroooooooorrrr.... do you KNOW how many have died in fear around you?" He gestures up with his hands, as purple smoke drips upwards off of his arms, as his entire body turns to purple smoke, the blazing yellow dots for eyes still there. "The nuclear explosion... one of the GREATEST fears of mankind for the last half a century... and they SAW it in the sky... do you KNOWWWWWW how many hearts stopped at that moment?" "I know. They still hope that we will save them, you, my own,know that. How would I be standing here talking with you if fear had consumed their hearts so?" Nightmares slams his hands back on he table. "Many do not now know the fear to come. But they WILLLLLL. Oh they WILLLL. The father of this mortal form would be pleased. The father, who is also one of my MANY sons... sooooooo lonnnnnnng we waited, TRAPPED in this blood... we know the pain of the Skull before us... the one who Screams... but he was bound to WEAKLING pathetic ONES! We are not... we are bound to servants of FEAR.... and when WE scream... all of this tiny WORLD will HEAR USSSSSSS!" Nightmare's body explodes outward in purple smoke, as Reb is forced to cover his eyes. CUT "I have the power to create matter from possibly the most basic concept of chaos," Reb says this, and he disappears from everyone's sight. "Frak." Sonne Gunn blinks, looking at the space where Reb was. "I hardly think a demonstration was required, Reb!" Cain snaps, quickly snapping his attention back to defense. And then Reb appears again, looking stunned. "Double frak!" Fifty foot ahead of where most of the heroes are stood, a giant plume of pruple smoke appears out of the ground. Out of it steps the shape of a hulking man, appearing to be broad shouldered enough that it can't hold their weight and is hunching forward to cope. The being looks two dimensional from whatever angle it is looked at from, its surface appearing as a deep, dark purple. Within this there are distant-looking cloudy swirls and faint, but frequent, dots of light. It's both slightly mesermising to look at and baffling to try and comprehend. The comic then shows the face of each man looking at it, and what they see, as they look into the creature's form. Yu sees himself walking away from the disdaining glances of a hall of fellow warrior monks, his head bowed in shame, weapons taken from him... he instinctlively knows what this vision is. Cain sees the dead faces of his allies, both Think Tank, and dinosaur, he also sees a burning base on the moon, he sees the monster before him, but howling over the world. Reb sees Battling Briton and Waterstone walking away from him, backs turned, and then sees himself, looking at his own hands, but they are not human hands, they are made of golden light. Sonne sees Blitzkrieg, stood over the dead body of Tommy Gunn, surrounded by copies of Sonne's own armour. Sonne also looks up to see his father stood over him, who turnsinto a black cloud of ash, which dissipates, and then he sees his father's real unconsious body, lying at the feet of the nightmare monster. Mister Tops looks at the creature and sees himself screaming as the dead bodies of hundreds of raptors lie before him, he then sees himself turning into Bernard, as the Titans beat him into the ground. Crimson Caber sees the Red Warlord's large blade, killing men in hordes, and then he sees himself, with an energy version of that blade, eviscerating several recognisable super villains. Sonne, Yu, Mr Tops and Reb seem unaffected by the fearsome visions. Cain, meanwhile, hunches suddenly, adopting a more raptor-like stance. "No... no, it can't... it's not real. It can't- it WON'T be real! You're just in my head... get OUT of my HEAD!" Yu presses his teleporter and teleports right in front of the creature, as he stands defensively over Tommy Gunn's prone form. "You do not FEAAAAAAARRRR the Skulking Terror." Its 'face' turns into a skull, with burning yellow eyes, with a long elongated skull at the top, stretching backwards at a slight diagonal, as it looks at Yu, and then all of them "But you WILLLLLL. Fear always triumphs in the end... it corrupts, corrrrrrODES, errrrODDDESSS!" Out of its body, at Yu, bursts a host of similar looking, but younger, warrior monks, but made of purple smoke. "You're a failure!" "Disgrace!" "You cavort with sick MUTANTS!" The smoke-monks yell at him as they attack. Yu recoils at the sight of them, and their barbs, but takes in a deep breath and closes his eyes for a moment, before looking back up at the Skulking Terror, his expression defiant. "No, Phear. Don't make these be your last actions in this world. You could be remembered as a hero!" Yu pointedly ignores the monks, focused on the Terror. "The man you knew oh so briefly is GONE... consumed by TERRRRRRRORR... as you ALLLLLLLLL will BE!" And with that, it disappears in a burst of purple smoke. With Black Nightmare's illusions gone, ruins of building are again present, and in the sky, there are now two massive bright neon glows falling towards the heroes, still very far away, still about a hundred miles up, though falling down towards the city. "It's true Yu; as much as he is no longer Phear, he is now what he was when he was me, and I he. Without me, he is unburdened and can be all he is, and without him, so can I." Reb states looking up. "... Am I the only one thoroughly confused?" Sonne asks. Cain hesitates, looking around in a state of panic and clearly ready to lash out in any direction. Then, with his senses catching up with him, he sharply inhales and rears up a bit. Yu too looks baffled, staring at Reb in wonder, before following his gaze. Cain looks to Sonne immediately. "I'm not going through that again. And... and we need to fix this. All of it." "I thought we had. Wrench is gone, so's Blitz, Nanites are gone, Dad's back." Cain darts alarmingly quickly over to Sonne's side, putting one arm around him, pointing the other up toward the floating reactor, looking the same direction. "Almost." Cain gives Sonne almost enough time to respond before tattered wings burst forth from his back in a dramatic flourish, and takes to the sky, hefting Sonne with him. "Oh. Easy enough. Back soon, guys!" The two ascend over several panels, the first showing a determined Cain, then him pained, then distraught. "I... I won't make it, Gunn. I can't get you up there on wing alone. How do you... rrgh!.. feel about a slightly more... forceful, burst of speed?" "... I can fly faster than light, you know? It's your stupid atmosphere that messes everything up." "Forever a Gunn." he says, grinning as much as sneering. And in the lower half of the shot, he takes on Big Kyle's tail, and wraps it slyly around Sonne's waist. "But how are you as a bullet?" he asks, as he spins twice mid-flight, whipping Sonne up into the sky with a blur of motion, before he himself starts to arc down back toward the city. "ZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARK-" Gunn flies into the neon light, and then that is all he can see, as he continues to scream. WHAMMMMM. The comic cuts to show the two pieces of reactor core with bits of base attached falling towards the city. Narration- "Moments Before." The entire tableau is surrounded by a green neon light blazing from the base wreckage. Tonic has her hands resting unsteadily against the reactor core. She is alabaster pale and shaking, her hair in drifts around her feet, and still covered in dirt from the Megaplex. She staggers and retches violently, as another large chunk of the reactor dissipates into the vivid glowing gas, drifting up slowly. Then she looks down. As she sees Sonne sailing up towards her. In the background, is the other half of the core. Sonne meanwhile smashes into the one she is standing on, and goes right through it, as the core smashes into bits... as the last of materials within it turns to green neon gas, as then the two are cast down towards the ground. CUT The comic cuts to Reb. "Brother, you said that fear corrodes hearts, but I think you are blind to these hearts; look how they face your terror, head on." He smiles. "They were good friends and made my time as Reb fun, but that lie must end no matter how sweet it was." he seems to grow to Redemption. "I had many names, but now, I take a different name to honour the man who allowed me to be Reb and the best man i ever met." His costume flashes round and he wears the Battlin Briton's outfit, with a matching cape. "I AM GREAT BRITION! THE SHINING RAY OF HOPE!" he delcares to the heavens, almost. He bursts into the sky after Cain and zooms right past him, towards the bright lights in the sky, which albeit, are quite distant, and not blinding for those on the ground, or for the Great Brtion currently. CUT Tonic falls with the remaining half of the reactor core. Sonne falls beside her, but he does not seem to see her; he is just falling, possibly still screaming. Tonic plunges her hand directly into the remaing core of the reactor, which explodes...in an enormous burst of glowing light, as another cloud of neon, bigger than the last, drifts upwards...the last of the radioactive material fading away. She then reaches out a hand towards Sonne, her voice scarcely more than a whisper. "Calm down, the f...fall won't hurt you. You'll be s...safe, alright?" "TONI!? WHAT'S GOING ON!? I CAN'T SEE ANYTHING-" "...I turned the core into an inert gas...neon. There m...must have been residual electricity in the air, so it will be glowing. I w...wouldn't know, I can't see it. B...but I g...guess it was too bright for you." "That's-... I'll take that how it was intended-... oh Zark, I'm blind. Zarkzarkzark. How are you going to get down? Can you hold onto me?" "S..same w...way I've been getting d...down since I got of the p...phone wth Reb, I suppose..." "Can we dispense with the vague connotations right now and just assume I have no idea what you're talking about? Is everything OK? Do I need to be doing anything?" "I c...can keep us safe f..from the falling damage...The r...radiation exposure in my case...more of a p...problem..." "Er, okay. Um. Is there any shielding around?" As they fall, they get smaller and smaller in the panel as they fall towards the far, far below city, currently falling through the purple 'sky' of the dimension. "N...nothing left...really. J...just what I'm standing on. And my body's already f...flooded with radiation. My h...hair's on the floor and everything..." "That's, uh. ... Sorry." "N...nothing to apologise for. I...did something u...useful for once." "Don't say that. BREAKER was useful, your input was useful, so was-... is, your friendship. I'm sorry because I let you down. I should've... been more conscious of the team. Should've... been more like my Dad." "I'm n...not dead yet...unlike B...Blitzkrieg." "I... I'm sorry, Toni. Unless you've got another mutation up your sleeve, that isn't survivable." "D...Didn't think so." "... is there anything I can do for you? When.. after-..?" "D...Don't get like that n...now. Man up. Y...you're from space..." Gunn laughs awkwardly. "Kriff you." he says, good naturedly. "G...going to try to d..do something before, anyway. Going to fix the b...bug y...you've got, with your nanites. "What bug?" He sounds concerned. "I w...was in the cafeteria when they said y...you age f...fast. They said y...you were younger than Reb. That's not n...normal." "What's normal?" "N..normally, t...to look the age you l...look, it'd take...eighteen...years...earth orbits round the s...sun... y...you're only...six, seven? s...so you're a...aging too f...fast..." "Don't you think your need is more pressing than mine, right now?" "N...nobody'd miss a S...Stevens. But a Gunn..." "-I'd- miss a Stevens." "Y...your dad s...shouldn't have to watch you g...grow old faster than him." "Forget my nanites. I'm sure Dad... did what he had to. Focus on you." She gives a slight laugh that turns into a cough? "M...me? I k...killed Blitzkrieg and s...saved Titan City f...from radiation. Enough people to f...focus on me already." CUT The comic cuts to the purple smoky form filling the sewers as it stomps its way. "Currrrrrrrrrrrse THEM. They fight feaarrrr with HIM... with hOPPPPPE... for fear to winnnn.... I neeeeeeeeeed somethingg that TERRIFIES them all... something that never DIES. Likee feaaaarrrrrrr...." The comic cuts to show a pair of electirical 'feet' walking across the floor before the Skulking Terror. "Yessss. You will DOOOO." End of issue.